For the past 10 years, fans
and foes alike have had strong opinions about my work with games. Now I'm
giving you the chance to put your money where your mouth is and do a
better job! As the title suggests, Under Development takes you behind
the scenes of game development and puts the controller in your hands at the
industry's most pivotal moments. Spanning over 30 years from 1981 to 2011 and
beyond, it's my tribute to the art form I grew up alongside...

Breaking The 4th WallThere were 2 concepts that I felt compelled
to get out of my system before it was too late. One was a game about a game
character who doesn't know he's a game character (which was largely dealt with
via the metaphor of The You Testament). The other was an equally
mind-bending game about making games! I suspected fate would conspire to make me
do it one day, and here we are. Ironically, it's actually a subject I couldn't
broach until I stepped back because - as we'll see - it's deeply rooted in the
real world and infringes a thousand too many copyrights to go commercial...

Nothing New Under The SunWhen I first embarked on this
project, I assumed it would be completely original. But alas, it transpires
that a couple of like-minded souls ventured there before me. Game Dev Story
is a charming little phone app that closely resembles what I originally had in
mind, and the PC itself has the largely text-based Game Biz series. As
with the wrestling games, then, my contribution won't be to "invent the wheel"
so much as attach it to a powerful engine and drive it as far as possible! Regardless of the existence of other games, mine was
made in isolation of them and most certainly takes things in a different
direction. A step closer to the mainstream, perhaps, because in my hands game
development is a fully immersive 3D experience. In fact, it already has
something on my previous games because a lot of effort has gone into producing
faithful, photo-realistic versions of the hardware - and even the hands that
touch them are now noticeably more detailed...

Six Of The BestUnderneath the detailed new
visuals, the game itself is deceptively simple. The engine is driven by 6 basic
statistics that are largely consistent across projects, hardware, and
characters. Design translates into gameplay and reflects how fun a game
is to play. Programming, by comparison, is a measure of sophistication
and results in a game that will stand the test of time. Visuals are separated
into 2D Graphics and 3D Graphics, with the latter taking a long
time to become the common feature that it is today. It does still feature in 2D
games though, where there can be the "suggestion" of 3D via isometric
displays, etc. Likewise, 3D games are not without the 2D workload of texturing and
presentation. The content and visuals are then topped off by Sound and
Music, which again are distinct but equally important qualities that no
decent game can overlook entirely...

Weapon Of Choice
Each piece of hardware is increasingly proficient in these 6 categories, and any
games you make will be limited by those statistics. As in real life, then, the
key to success is migrating to the right system at the right time. It's a gamble
though, because "software development kits" are increasingly expensive - and no
machine is guaranteed to be successful. One of the interesting things about the
game is that it simultaneously recreates history and re-writes it at the same
time! Consoles that dominated or bombed in real life may have their fates
reversed in this game. There are also lots of other developments that you must
adapt to - such as fluctuating manufacturing costs that affect your profit
margins. If you switch to a console when cartridge prices spiral out of control,
you may be left pining for cassettes and floppy discs. There are over 30
different systems in all, carefully distributed over as many years - each
representing its own era. In fact, this industry sim is potentially so long
that it's the first to be played on a timeframe of MONTHS rather than weeks! You
can also choose exactly which date your game starts on, so you can fast-forward
to eras of personal interest...

Work
Force
The corresponding skills of your team are required to get the best out of the
hardware in each category to create a functional game. This is where the game
departs from my previous industry sims in 2 crucial ways. One is that you'll
notice that the meters are now graphical as well as numerical - which helps you
assess the situation at a glance. Secondly, there's a greater disparity here
than ever before because it's perfectly possible to be talentless in most (if
not all) of the other disciplines! Very few game developers are multi-talented,
so a productive team consists of up to 6 specialists. You could, of course,
multiple that figure by 10 in real life - but the game uses a lot of symbolism
to keep things simple. Each character in your office gets to make a contribution
each week, so the more hands you hire the quicker each aspect of the project
will take shape. Expansion isn't necessarily a recipe for success though,
because humans are the least predictable thing about the game and office
politics is as much of a minefield as ever! Although game developers aren't as
well known as their counterparts in other professions, I've done my best to
include some famous faces such as Peter Molyneux and Shigeru Miyamoto who you
can aspire to work with. In keeping with the balls-out copyright infringement,
they operate under their real names too - which is a shame because I enjoy
fabricating fake names! As ever, there's also a comprehensive editor where you
can make your own changes...

Play Games To Make GamesIn case you were beginning to
fear that "symbolic" game development might be a dour process, one of the game's
redeeming features is that you actually PLAY games to make games. Every effort
put forth by a chosen character triggers a charming little retro sub-game where
you clock up points in a specific category. There are 8 different ones to enjoy
- ranging from classics like Tetris and Space Invaders to my own
creations such as Moksha and Sure Shot. I must say that making
each one was some of the most fun I've ever had as a game developer.
Reverse-engineering those classic concepts and re-interpreting them in the space
of an afternoon was a real test of my skills. It's an absolutely perfect fit for
the concept too. Firstly, the difficulty of each game reflects the skills of
your chosen character - so there's a genuine sense of struggling with a
talentless team. Furthermore, the scale of each game expands to match the
hardware you're working on - so simple sessions on an Atari 2600 evolve
into high-scoring escapades on a Playstation. This, in turn, reflects the
fact that game development becomes harder and more time-consuming as technology
progresses. But if all of this button bashing sounds like an inconvenience in
your quest for progress, you'll be pleased to know that it's perfectly possible
to "simulate" the work being done at the click of a mouse...

Getting RealMy original idea for a game
about making games wasn't symbolic at all and literally involved you mixing and
matching elements of my own work to create playable games. Of course, it wasn't
long before I dismissed that as impractical! What we have instead is actually
more meaningful than I could have ever envisioned because it's deeply rooted in
the games we all know and love. As your project develops in each field, your
efforts are matched up to a real game - a screenshot of which magically appears
on your device for you to marvel at. The game features an exhaustive list of
over 500 games from the past 30 years - and there's even an editor to help you
insert your own. One of the many games within this game is simply the joy of
seeing which classic title your ingredients have cooked up! There's a
genuine sense of progressing from simple Atari 2600 games to
sophisticated 3D programs - and it happens right before your eyes with every
improvement you make. I must confess that there's a significant bias towards
older games simply because they mean more to me (and because modern ones are so
undeniably charmless!). This game is fully customizable, though, and is as good
as you make it. It is my hope that fans will quadruple the library of software
with their own screenshots and data...

The Name Of The GameA similarly nostalgic pleasure
is when you have your screenshot and must then match it up to the correct box
art from real life! This is portrayed as a metaphor for "marketing", whereby you
must suggest the correct identity to your boss from a choice of 3 random ones.
It was intended to be a test of your gaming knowledge, but you'd have to be
devoid of common sense to make a genuine mistake! It's a charming sequence
though - especially since your character marvels over the finished product in
his hands once you've reached that stage. In real life, this was one of the
defining moments of my own career and I recreate it for you here. A nice little
touch is that the game will automatically rename dated titles to reflect the
date that YOU discovered it. So if you discover WWE 12 or Madden
92 at an earlier or later date, it will be named accordingly. As with the
hardware, another interesting thing about this game is that you can pull games
out of context and make them earlier or later than in real life - especially
when they're timelessly simple such as Tetris or Angry Birds. In
fact, a good case in point is my own games - which hover around Playstation
status and can be discovered 10 years before I made them myself!

Rave ReviewsFun though it is, identifying a
project is also a necessary step towards releasing it. Once you have established
the identity of the game you're working on, it's essentially "locked in" and you
can proceed to polish it without worrying about it transforming into a different
game. You can then release it when you've done the best you can - at which point
the gaming press will scrutinize every aspect of your work! As with Popscene
and Popcorn, this is an insightful process that genuinely reflects your
efforts in each area - even citing the member of your team who was responsible.
A unique feature of this game is that the reviews also place each project in the
context of what the latest machines are capable of. A game that once got rave
reviews in the early 80s will - quite rightly - be dismissed as unacceptable in
the 1990s. This influences the overall score reviewers are prepared to give it,
which in turn determines how strong a start it can hope to get off to in the
charts. As in real life, it's possible to succeed without the blessing of the
press - but their judgments will always have an affect on your reputation. For
the purposes of this game, the publication in question is a real one called
Edge - a highfalutin British magazine that focuses on game development as
much as games themselves. As with the many other instances of copyright
infringement, I hope they'll take their inclusion as the supportive gesture it
was intended to be...

Fame &
FortuneAt the end of the day, all of
your efforts boil down to how many people are prepared to part with their
hard-earned money to own your game. More factors are at work than ever in this
game as you walk the thin line between success and failure. As in real life, the
public's perception of what is or isn't important changes over time. Originally,
good old-fashioned gameplay is most important - but this is gradually supplanted
by the sophisticated programming of computer games, the superior 2D graphics of
console games, the popularization of 3D graphics in the mid-90s, and even the
flirtation with music that we have experienced in recent years. Whichever aspect
of a game is deemed most important at the time will affect whether your creation
fits in or not. Furthermore, each character has a "Reputation" measured by the
heart running up the side of their 6 main stats. This is the equivalent of
"Popularity" from my other games and indicates how famous or well-respected they
are. And as ever, this is the most significant factor in how much they are
likely to earn. It's also how valuable they are to you, though, because each
quality of the project is multiplied by the reputation of the character that
produced it. If you can claim that your game was designed by a famous developer
such as Shigeru Miyamoto or Peter Molyneux, the name recognition alone will be
lucrative - even if their work doesn't quite warrant it! Similarly, it's also
possible to be a talented game developer who nobody cares about (ahem) - so
there's a balance to strike between productivity and public perception...

Paying Your DueThe success of a game is
further filtered through which system it was released on. A piece of hardware
needs to have at least a million "active users" for it to be considered a
success. Anything less than that will dilute your game sales accordingly.
Platforms slowly rise and fall in popularity over time, so you have to choose
when to jump on the bandwagon and when to move on. As mentioned earlier, the
chosen format of your hardware also affects your profit margins. A popular game
on the ZX Spectrum may only be shifting $5 cassettes, whereas its
equivalent on a console may be moving $20 cartridges. The scale of your ambition
affects whether your work is personally satisfying or professionally lucrative.
In this game, you also have to deal with fluctuating tax rates, rent, and repair
costs - so there's a real sense of the economic landscape changing over time. A
nice little touch is that these developments are literally reported in the news
if you pay attention to the ads in the corner!

The Major PlayersOf course, the biggest factor
is the success or failure of a game is which publisher you release it with. As
in my other industry sims, you begin life at the independent level - which is
depicted as "bedroom coding" with Blitz BASIC here to reflect my own
real-life status. Although it's possible to make a living releasing games
independently, it's significantly less lucrative and you'll eventually find
yourself pining for an opportunity at one of the 8 major companies. With the
games industry, it was infinitely more painful to limit myself to just 8 because
I could have literally had as many brands as there are characters! But since
dozens of characters have to exist under each banner, that was never going to be
practical. My inclusions were largely decided for me by which brands are
required by the hardware, so the core consists of Nintendo, Sega,
Atari,Sony, and Microsoft. These are then complemented by
3 relatively "neutral" brands such as Capcom, Konami, and
Electronic Arts. Trust me, there were dozens of alternatives fighting for
those 3 spots! As with the games, I'm sure modders will have fun making their
own additions...

Company PolicyThe companies don't differ in
status as much as they did in previous games - other than where you work affects which
talent you have access to. Instead of fluctuating "Popularity" and "Reputation",
this game acknowledges that most companies are essential the same and gives them
different "philosophies" instead. One of the reasons I was big on including the
hardware manufacturers was that it's genuinely possible to sign "exclusivity"
contracts whereby Nintendo employees only develop for Nintendo products, etc.
Other philosophies include paying more generous advances or royalties, signing
employees to longer or shorter contracts, and all manner of other ways of
approaching the business. When you come to sign with one of them, you now have
more to consider than just the size of your pay packet. Unlike in previous
games, these unique features change over time - especially when the management
changes - so it's worth keeping an eye on which companies are reportedly the
best to work for...

If Walls Could TalkAn innovation on previous
industry sims is that each company is now visibly different as well as
professionally different. Each label has its own unique combination of wall and
floor textures, which gives you the impression that you've migrated to a
different location. The logo is also featured more prominently above the door.
More importantly, the contents of the office have stepped up a notch as well.
The photo-realistic hardware exposed the weak texturing everywhere else and
motivated me to create a nice new leather chair and wooden desk. Each
workstation is also adorned with its own little details such as game boxes and
posters - which genuinely reflect the popular titles of that time...

Character PossibilitiesAlthough the characters have
been demoted to being the ugliest entities in the game, they too have one or two
innovations to boast. Further to the realistic hands that look better up-close,
the character possibilities have been expanded by the simple fact that facial
hair is now optional. It sits right next to your choice of face and allows you
to apply any one of 20 different styles to ANY given face texture! The effect
isn't as convincing as a dedicated texture - especially for lighter hair colours
- but it's a welcome addition nonetheless. Look out for it in re-released
versions of the other games - along with tattoos which work on the same
principle for the rest of the body. Speaking of which, a couple of
new hairstyles
help you to achieve Randy Orton's pointed shave and John Cena's wedge...

Echoes Of The PastAlong with all the familiar
screenshots and box art, one of the most nostalgic joys is something that I
cannot communicate in a mere article - a jukebox featuring over 30 classic
themes from real games! I won't spoil the surprise by listing them all, but I
hope you enjoy being reacquainted with them as much as I did. The feature easily
ensures that Under Development has the most pleasant background music of
any game yet - although you still have the option to tone down the volume if it
bothers you. Similarly, the game brazenly uses sound effects from existing games
- such as the triumphant fanfare from Civilization II that accompanies
each achievement. It's yet another feature that simply wouldn't be possible in a
commercial release. As you all know by now, I don't take copyright infringement lightly -
but I feel this all-encompassing project deserves to exist as a timeless tribute
to the first 30 years of game development. Becoming a small part of it still the
defining achievement of my life thus far, and I hope you enjoy bringing your own
dreams to life through this exhaustive simulation...